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Be thankful for a PM who tells it straight

Clare Foges

Too many politicians offer visions and revolutions but Theresa May shows signs of being able to deliver harsh truths

Though I am proud to have worked for David Cameron, there is an indelible black mark on his record. He once closed a speech with the words “Let sunshine win the day!” It is unforgivably Californian from a British politician and emblematic of a mistake made time and again: to assume the British public craves sunny optimism over salty realism.

Henry Miller once raged that “the whole f***ing world is going 100 per cent American” and there is no doubt that the sunshine state of mind has seeped into our politics. Daniel Finkelstein has written here of the influence that Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, has had over President Trump. Those “believe in yourself!” mantras spawned such Trumpite gems as…

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